The Seeker's Map
by Lord Lycaon
Summary: The Seekers: an organization of men and women with all types of skill sets. Their jobs range from hunting for rare treasures to hunting dangerous criminals. When Link and his partner Diana, both young prodigies within the Seekers, discover a bizarre map while on a job, they must delve into a quest that will decide the fate of the kingdom of Hyrule and the entire world.


The dark tunnels echoed his footsteps silently as he made his way through the cave, his only source of light a gradually fading torch, his forest green tunic letting out the slight _clanks_ from the chain mail armor underneath. He reached into his pouch hooked to his belt and pulled a sheet of paper that detailed what it was that he was searching for: an old chest full of loot gathered by bandits over twenty years ago. A simple job, really, but made rather difficult by the possibility of wild animals and even cave-dwelling monsters, like Keese, Chus, or, gods forbid, one of the goblin races, like Moblins or their smaller Bokoblin cousins. It wouldn't really be anything he couldn't handle – he was pretty decent with his sword and shield after all – but it would be preferable to avoid such creatures.

As he headed through the tunnels, he could hear the sound of Keese fluttering about in the darkness. They would be mostly harmless, but he knew he should avoid them, lest he be swarmed by the corrupted bats. He crouched down silently to try and avoid making any noises that would alert them to his presence. He looked up above and saw a few of them roosting upon the ceiling, awaiting the time for the sun to set so that they can go out and hunt for small prey without the daytime light burning their eyes.

He slowly and silently stepped past the nest of resting bats, taking a sigh of relief as he noticed that they were growing fewer and further in between. He returned his focus to the path ahead, holding his torch ahead of his view to see if there was anything else down the road.

He continued through the tunnel, eventually reaching what appeared to be a really old, abandoned campsite. Tents made of rotting animal hide dotted the room, some having long fallen apart after twenty years of disrepair. Old bones still clad in roughly made leather armor and decaying cloth were scattered across the stone floor, rusted weapons still in hand. He went over to one corpse and studied the bones carefully. Several ribs had been crushed into the skeleton's chest, and another skeleton looked as though it had cuts in the bones. Some of them had even been crushed completely or cleaved in two from various angles.

"You guys died fighting someone," he said to himself out loud.

"Or some_thing_!" a girl's voice shouted from right behind him, making the green-clad boy jump and spin around with his sword drawn in his left hand. The girl before him was giggling at his reaction, trying very nearly in vain to keep herself from bursting out completely. Her hair was dark and shoulder-length, her eyes shone bright green with a kind of fire, and her ears were round, a telltale sign that she was human, not Hylian like he was. She wore a yellow tunic with a bow and quiver full of arrows strapped to her back and a dagger sheathed at her waist.

The boy scowled as he sheathed his weapon on his back. "Diana, how many times have I told you not to do that?" he asked, more annoyed than angry.

The girl called Diana took a deep breath to stop herself from laughing. "Sorry, Link," she replied with an amused grin, "but you're hilarious when you're startled. Did you really forget that I was right behind you the whole time?"

"You do tend to talk less when we need to be quiet," Link pointed out, taking off his long, green cap and running his hand through his light brown hair before replacing his hat. He turned away from his partner and looked around the makeshift camp, his wild blue eyes watching for anything suspicious. "Look around. See if you can find anything. Chests, strong boxes, old satchels: keep an eye out for any little bits and baubles we can get our hands on."

Diana nodded with a mock salute. "Aye, aye, sir!" she said with a smirk. She then hurried over to the nearest tent. Link shook his head at the girl's chipper attitude and sauntered through the old camp. He found a fire pit, and though the wood inside was rotted, it still looked good enough to light. He bent down and lowered his torch into the pit, the flames licking the firewood until it lit up completely. The fire pit's light was surprisingly bright for one so old. It was bright enough for him to put out his torch with a small cup he had stored in his pouch.

Link stood up again and resumed his search. He looked through several bodies and tents, only finding small things – a few green and blue Rupees, some jewelry, a handful of old, but valuable-looking, books and magic tomes – but nothing too extraordinary. Was this all that these bandits had before they were killed off?

"Bingo!" Diana called out. "Link, come here and check this out!" The blue-eyed Hylian headed over to where Diana had called him from. He found her by the ruins of what might've been the largest tent in the cave, kneeling over a fairly large chest.

Link raised an eyebrow at the girl's discovery. "Have you looked inside it yet?"

"No," she admitted. "I wanted you to know that I'd found something big before you this time!"

The green-clad Hylian rolled his eyes and motioned for Diana to move, which she did so while managing to keep a smug look on her face. He moved to open the large box, jerking on the lid several times before giving up. "Locked," he stated flatly.

"And that's where my particular skill set comes in," Diana bragged as Link stepped away from the chest. She knelt down in front of the box and pulled a lock pick set out of her own little pouch. She inserted two of the picks into the chest's lock and began working on the mechanism. This was one of the many reasons why she was Link's partner: while he was primarily a close-quarters fighter with no aptitude for thing like picking locks, casting magic, or even sneaking past intelligent potential threats, she was the exact opposite. Diana specialized mainly in all those fields except for magic, and was a crack shot with her bow, and lethal with her dagger when she needed to get up close and personal. Together, they were almost a perfect team.

There was just one problem though: Link never wanted a partner. Diana had been assigned to him by his superiors in the organization that they were both a part of. He was a loner by nature for reasons that he never really knew, nor cared to really learn about. He could still remember arguing with old man Valek about it. He lost that debate thoroughly.

Thus, he was now stuck with an overly talkative, wild-hearted borderline kleptomaniac as his partner on these jobs. As Seekers, people who took on various jobs ranging from treasure hunting to bounty hunting, they were often tasked with jobs like finding old treasures that had either been missing for a long time or had been stolen. Link and Diana had even sometimes been tasked with tracking down and capturing, or, on rare occasions, killing, wanted criminals, or even taking care of infestations of animals or monsters.

_Click._

The sound of the chest's lock popping open got Link to pay attention again. Diana had succeeded at unlocking the chest, and was now grinning cockily. "Yeah, I'm awesome," she bragged as she stepped away so that Link could open the chest. Once again, the Hylian boy rolled his eyes at the girl, who was still grinning. He made to open the chest, but just before he could, however, he heard something. He could hear the sound of metal scraping against stone, and bones clacking against rock and one another. It was a sound that he was all too familiar with.

He drew his sword and shield as Diana drew her bow and took an arrow out of her quiver, preparing to notch it. The pair stood back to back, waiting for the enemy to arrive. Diana raised her bow, her arrow at the ready. "I hate these things," she mumbled.

Link chuckled. "You're not the only one, Diana. These guys can be pretty irritating."

Soon, the source of the clacking and scraping revealed itself: a foursome of Stalfos had surrounded them, each of them armed and ready for battle. Three of them had shields, one of them wielding an old, rusted sword, another carrying an ancient-looking mace, and the third carrying a jagged dagger. The fourth was at least a foot taller than the others, and was armed with a huge battleax that was at least as big as Link, who groaned slightly at the undead warriors.

"Well, at least we now know for certain how these bandits died," he stated rather bluntly, sinking into a ready stance.

"Load of good that does us," Diana replied in a snide tone. The Stalfos chattered and clicked as they approached, stopping when they were within ten feet of the two living beings. Diana drew her arrow back a slight bit further, aiming for the head of the Stalfos that was brandishing the mace. "Ready when you are, Link."

The Hylian nodded, his pointed ears twitching slightly as the walking skeletons stood, glaring at the young Seekers with those burning red lights that served as their eyes. And then, the Stalfos armed with the battleax suddenly released an ear-piercing screech and charged, the other three following suit. Link immediately charged at the ax-wielding Stalfos as Diana released her arrow right into the eye of the mace-wielding skeleton. The arrow broke through the monster's skull, killing it instantly, the bones collapsing as the dark powers that sustained it were released. She quickly notched up another arrow and sidestepped a slash from the Stalfos carrying the rusted sword.

She saw an opportunity then, and, instead of shooting her arrow, she rammed the small weapon right into the skull through the opening of its lower jaw. The Stalfos' body broke apart like the first as she quickly drew out her dagger to block an attack by the Stalfos that carried a similar weapon. She swung her bow right into the monster's bony face, knocking the skull clean off. The body fell apart, but the skull began hopping around on its own, trying to get back to it body, but just before it could reach its destination, Diana stomped down as hard as she could on the helpless creature.

She notched another arrow and took aim at the Stalfos that Link was currently fighting. But only as a precaution. Link was easily blocking and dodging the monster's attacks as he watched for a good opening to exploit.

The monster raised its weapon to slash down at the young Hylian, quickly raised his shield to deflect the blow and slash at the Stalfos' spine, severing its torso from its legs, which crumbled into a small heap. The Stalfos released its battleax as when it hit the ground, its body breaking apart almost immediately, and its skull rolling away until it hit a rock. The bone began bouncing closer to its body, but just before it made it to the pile of bones, Link's sword rammed through the top of it. The swordsman then swung his blade off to the left, sending the Stalfos' head to shatter against the rock wall of the cave.

With a sigh, Link sheathed his sword and shield as Diana did the same with her bow and dagger. "At least they're relatively easy to kill," he said.

It was now Diana's turn to roll her eyes. "That doesn't change the fact that they're creepy as hell," she replied with a slight shudder. "I hate undead monsters. They're almost as bad as spiders." Link smirked at the dark-haired girl. She scowled. "And don't bring up that escapade in that Gohma hive two months ago. I had nightmares for a week."

Link chuckled in slight amusement. "All right, all right. Let's just get back to that chest."

Diana's beaming grin instantly reappeared. "Right! I wonder what's in there? I hope it's jewels or money or something just as sweet!" She practically sprinted over to the chest and knelt in front of it to open it up, which she did with gusto. When she did, however, she held a dumbfounded expression on her face. "W-wha… what?"

"What is it?" Link inquired curiously as he approached the now opened box. When Diana gave him no answer, he looked inside for himself. And he immediately put on the mother of all "WTF" faces. "Oh, what the hell?"

Inside the chest was an old piece of paper. A _really_ old piece of paper. Most of the chest had padding in it to hold the paper up to the top of the box's opening. The sheet was completely blank, and had holes and tears all over it. Why in the name of the gods anybody would ever put a piece of old scrap paper in a treasure chest was beyond either of them.

Diana continued to stare in complete disbelief. "We just risked our lives… for a piece of paper… an old, useless, torn up sheet of worthless… WHAT THE HELL!?" Link cringed at Diana's outburst, his sensitive ears nearly ringing just from that.

"Please don't do that," he requested with his ears covered. "Hylians have a very sensitive sense of hearing, you know. Any louder, and I might even go deaf." Diana sighed and nodded, to which Link nodded back. He returned his attention to the paper. "Maybe there's something on it? Invisible ink or something?"

"I guess…" Diana grumbled as she stood up straight again and crossed her arms. "There better be something good on that thing, or I'm gonna be ticked."

"I hope so, too." Link then took the sheet of paper out of the chest and held it up in front of him. Then, suddenly and out of nowhere, the paper lit up, nearly blinding them both. The light faded just as quickly as it appeared, and Link looked at the paper yet again. His eyes went wide; the sheet looked like it was brand new, all of its tears and holes having been filled in and repaired. But even that wasn't the most shocking surprise.

The paper now had an image of the entire land of Hyrule, their homeland, and it looked like it was _moving_. The images on the… map shifted in various places. Location where there was water appeared to flow like actual rivers and churn like true lakes. The image of the volcano called Death Mountain that stood to the east billowed smoke, and the western Gerudo Desert looked as though it was having a genuine sandstorm. It even showed little dots here and there that appeared to be people, animals, and even monsters.

Both of them now stared with another form of disbelief. "Okay," Diana said, "I take back what I said. This looks pretty cool."

"This thing must be enchanted somehow," Link surmised when he managed to gather his thoughts properly. "What is this?"

Diana replied with a shrug. "Maybe old man Valek will know? He is an expert with these sorts of things. Magical artifacts I mean."

Link nodded in agreement. "Right." He rolled up the mystical map and tucked it away in his pouch. "Let's look for whatever else might be around here. I don't want to leave without knowing for certain whether we've gotten everything."

"Fair enough," Diana responded. She went off to search the rest of the area, as did Link. They both made a mental note to speak with their mentor. Valek would definitely know what they had just gotten themselves into.


End file.
